


Kyber Hearts

by rainbowagnes



Series: SW Family Feels [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), The Force Awakens - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cassian Andor's guide to women, Cassian is Finn's mescal uncle, Family Dinner, Finn-centric, Force-Sensitive Finn, Found Family, Gen, If that's your thing - Freeform, It ends with Finn about to curb-stomp Kylo Ren, Jedi Finn, Jyn is Finn's vodka aunt, Kyber Crystals, Lightsabers, concept: a star wars mother figure who doesn't die, for Rogue One at least, it certainly is mine, or - Freeform, rebelfinn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 01:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowagnes/pseuds/rainbowagnes
Summary: Finn needs a lightsaber.He finds something close to a family instead.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a crazy idea I had- Finn's gonna need a lightsaber for his clearly force sensitive self, and there's the Erso kyber crystal floating around . . .  
> I may do a second version of this that is canon compliant for Rogue One.  
> I'm a general ship-Finn-with-pretty much everyone, so just insert your personal ship here..
> 
> I apologize for the order of the fic. The first couple of scenes are in mostly neat, chronological order. The last two scenes . . . are really just snip-its along Finn's path towards becoming a Jedi.

In the fog of his dreams, Finn hears two hearts. 

One is human. It sounds like a dozen other hearts whose steady murmur he can feel, by Force or not, even in his comatose state. Hearts that he tries to reach out to, but remain blocked by darkness, by mist and fog. 

The other is different. Not organic, not mechanical either, some how not even . . . alive? But beating steady just the same. It calls out to the parts of him that he has spent twenty years trying to ignore.

It pulls him to the shore.

The moment Finn wakes up, the real world crashes down. Shockingly cold and blindingly white, full of mechanical beeping noises that give him a head ache. For a second Finn almost wishes he was asleep again. 

"I can never figure out wether the worst thing about Leia being right is owing her twenty quid or seeing that smug look on her face."

There's a small middle aged woman sitting on a chair next to his bed with her feet on the bedside table. She almost reminds him of Rey.

Of all the people Finn's expected to meet in the rebellion, Jyn Erso isn't one of them. Partly because she's supposedly been dead since before he was born, but apse because he'd always assumed her existence was nothing more than propaganda. Look at what happens to those who fight the Empire. They end up burned alive, their names forgotten even by their own.  


He recognizes her face, of course, from classroom textbooks. "Petty thief and known terrorist," with a smirking teenage picture. But it isn't enough to deal with the shock when he sees the real deal. Still smirking, but not a teenager anymore. A soldier who's lived long enough to have silver in her hair and sharp creases around her eyes. 

He didn't know people did that anymore. General aside, everyone he's met seems to either be young or dead.

"The Big Deal's woken up from his beauty sleep." 

"They really calling me that?" He voice sounds weak and scratchy, and he's almost out of breath after a short sentence.

"It's what Solo called you on his transmission from Takodana, but given the way Poe's been talking you up around it's stuck." She hands him a glass of water and helps him swallow it, calming the burn in his throat. 

He tries to pull himself up, but his body feels like it's made of iron. There's another weight, too, besides weakness and atrophy. When he runs his fingers down his back and across his shoulder blade, he feels metal. Bolts, a wire, smoothe panes of metal embedded straight into the skin. 

"How long was I out for?"

"About three weeks, give or take. Enough time that Leia had to forcibly clear Dameron from your bedside and for me to schlep out here to see if this would wake you up." 

Her hands pry open one of his and he realizes he's been holding an object. A small, clear stone on a cord. It feels farm against his hands, heated from within, but he can't figure out why. It feels almost . . . alive. 

So it's some lady's good luck charm. He was probably about to wake up anyway.

"What is that?" 

"Have you ever heard of kyber crystals, Finn?" 

"Uh, the First Order kept some in a warehouse in Starkiller base. Never really figured out what they were for, though." 

"They contain the strongest concentrations of the Force of any known in-organic material in the Galaxy. They form the basis of every lightsaber. Traditionally, Jedi would feel some kind of . . . a call, let's say, with a specific kyber crystal. This one here is one of the only known pieces of kyber in the galaxy." 

"What happened to the rest?"

"Obliterated with the Death Star. There were a few bits and bobs still floating around the galaxy. That right there is the only white one I know of, aside from Tano's." 

It gets even warmer in hand, burning around his palm. There's an energy to it, a buzz that fills him, makes him feel connected to a world that's wider that his body. To an island, a green island in a planet covered by the sea, and on the island is a familiar girl with brown hair who reaches out to him and-

"You feel anything? Any connection to the Force?" 

Once upon a time, this crystal was probably a part of a lightsaber. In the future, it will probably be part of a lightsaber again. And Finn's had enough of lightsabers. His mind flashes to the first time he used one, outside Maz's palace on Takodana when he killed men who had once been his brothers. To the woods on Starkiller base, were the madman with the lightsaber had thrown Rey into a tree, used that horrible red blade to hurt him, torture him, leave him for dead on a destructing planet. 

Finn's had enough of lightsabers. 

So he lies. "Nothing at all, Ma'am. Just a clear rock." 

"Uh huh. Well, Leia said to bring it here to see if it wakes you up. She was worried about you." 

"Where's Poe?" 

"Out flying missions. I'm sure he'll be back now that he knows you're sentient." 

"What about Rey?" 

"The scavenger girl?" 

"She went to find Luke Skywalker. Said she'd meet you again." 

"Uh huh." Finn's eyelids feel heavy. Even though he's only been up ten minutes, he feels like he needs a nap. 

"I'm going back to sleep, if that's alright." 

"Not any use to the Resistance in this state. Rest up. If Dameron comes back, I'll bring him back here." 

"Thanks." A pause. "Why are you helpful?" 

"I'm a naturally helpful person." 

"Really?" 

She leans over, looks him in the eye. "As one terrorist to the Imperial cause to another, good job." 

"Thanks." He doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to talk about anything. 

"By the way," she adds right before he drifts off again, "you've got yourself quite the fan club. I think that most of the girls on base and half the boys are halfway in love with you." 

\-----

"What did you do, after it was over?" Finn looks up from studying the loose bits of tea in his cup. 

"Rebellion is never over. But I went back to university, became a scientist like my parents. I did think peace would last longer than this." 

"You think I could do that?" 

"Go back to university?" 

He nods. 

"I think there would need to be a functional university first for you to go to. Maybe when more of this business with the First Order is sorted out, some of them will re open." 

"But until then I have sorting out to do." 

"I'm afraid that's the case. Is there anywhere in the resistance you want to work?" 

"Rebel intelligence. There's good people who've been pulled in to the First Order. If I can find them . . ." 

"The face of the operation. It's a shame Bodhi's busy clearing refugees out of the outer Hosnians."

"Yeah. The face." He takes another sip of his tea, still scalding hot. "I need to get cleared for duty, though. Marksmanship and those super secret rebel spy skills." 

"I can help you with that." A low, heavily accented voice comes from the front door. "Both the marksmanship and the super secret rebel spy skills." 

Finn's only seen Jyn Erso's husband around base a few times. The man projects a kind of "don't-mess-with-me" vibe, and Finn's never tried. But the bull-headed Jyn Erso decided that Finn needed some kind of "adult Resistance mentor," and if that meant dragging him to tea in her living room off base, Finn still hadn't recovered enough to argue. There wasn't much to do around base anyway, and he found that he and Erso had more in common then he'd realized, even if they'd spent their childhoods as soldiers on very different sides of the war. 

The man looks completely different now, smiling and holding grocery bags. 

He stands up and salutes, which seems like an appropriate thing to do, but the man only laughs. From the few times he's seen them, Finn didn't even know the man could laugh. But he seems infinitely calmer at home with his wife. 

"I am Cassian." He shakes Finn's hand firmly. "If any things, I should be saluting you." 

"I'm Finn." 

Cassian speaks to his wife in a rambling stream of Festian, and she replies in kind. Finn's immediately lost. Only Imperial spies and interrogators understood anything but Basic. Rey seemed to speak thirty words from about twenty languages, Festian included, a mark of her upbringing at a trading post.

The Resistance issues commands in Basic as well, but the base is always awash with more languages and dialects than Finn can name. Basic is the language of military movements and orders, but when people talk about their homes, their families- it's in a plethora of languages Finn can't understand a word of. Festian, lingua Alderaa, Jedhan, Manadalori. 

It always sends a pang through his heart. A million years ago, in a time and place he doesnt even have any images of, he can remember words. No people, no definite locations, but words. O da aaro. Mo nifee re. Oko afategun-sare mi kun fun eja aro. 

The language wasn't Basic. 

"You are the defector who saved the Resistance." The man turns to him again.

"Yep."

"It is an honor to make you acquaintance." 

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" Jyn breaks through.

"I really should be going." 

"Bullshit. I can promise you that whatever Cassian makes will be better than the slop they serve at the mess hall." 

Finn can't argue with that. Jyn gives him a cutting board and a knife and a pile of something green he can't name and instructs him to chop, which he does to the best of his abilities in neat, precise, motions. The kids at the academy had a weekly rotation through the kitchen, but that meant slapping pre-portioned grey protein blocks onto plastic trays, not having to share an aggressively small space with two sixty-year old rebels who bicker in multiple languages and decide to kiss behind a sink. 

Eventually Jyn sets an oily dishcloth on fire, and then Finn sets his sleeve on fire, and they both get sent out of the kitchen. 

Dinner is some kind of red stew with chunks of a sea creature Finn also can't name served over rice. It's good, really good, but twenty years of completely bland protein blocks have left him without any tolerance for spice. Not to be rude, he finishes his entire serving, even when it makes tears spring in the corner of his eyes. 

"Have you ever had alcohol before?" 

Sort of. There was some stuff that one of the kids in Black Diamond squad brewed out of sucrose paste and the yeast from the officer's mess, but it almost killed him when he tried it. And the swill that Jessika and Kare exchange for all kinds of favors on base that's really only marginally better. 

He tells the Ersos that, and Cassian comes back from the pantry with a bottle of something with a red seal on it. 

"We cannot let your first alcoholic experience be that bad." 

"I've tried alcohol before." 

"Not alcohol meant for human consumption." He snaps the lid off the top and sloshes it into a glass. 

He takes a tentative sip. It feels like it burns the front of his already sore tongue off. Noticing Cassian's eager face, he slams back the rest of it. 

It's likes being dunked into a lake, a lake made of fire, and resurfacing again. And like being dunked in a lake, he comes up hacking. It takes Finn a moment to catch his breath afterward. He leans into the table, sure he can feel alcohol in his nostrils. 

"So, what did you think?" 

Finn's first thought is: between the soup and the liquor, are you two actually trying to kill me? 

His second is that he feels like there's fire roaring through his body. 

"It's awesome. I loved it." He isn't even entirely lying. 

Cassian pour three glasses this time, and they each raise a glass in toast. It goes down marginally easier this time, but the feeling of fire in his veins only increases. 

"I'm going to go find Poe. I am going to tell him how I feel." The idea seems like a very good one.

"I think you've given him a little two much liquid courage, honey. Probably best if we stop now." Jyn looks a little concerned.

"Probably for the best." 

When Finn finally leaves their house, the night is bitterly cold outside. Cassian gives him a ride back in their speeder and lets Finn borrow a thick parka for the ride. Finn's used to the seeping cold of man-made air conditioning, but the roaring winds over the moor cut him straight to the bone, even wearing Poe's jacket. 

He goes to sleep faster than he has in weeks, feeling decidedly less empty. 

\-----

"Pasa la llave." 

"Pasa la la-" Finn's tongue gets mixed up. "How do you even do that? That's too many vowels." 

"Let's try another one then. Pereday mne klyuch." 

"That's not from a language humans are meant to speak."

"I thought we were trying to get your language levels up to impress that girl." 

The Captain picks up his blaster again and casually shoots. Finn has to squint to see the target. Dead center. He out shoots Finn every time, even though Finn was top of his class at the Academy. 

The Captain- he told Finn to call him Cassian, but that just feels off, wrong, too soft a name for someone who could probably shoot the ash off a cigarrete a hundred paces away- is exactly the kind of man who makes Finn glad he's a part of the Resistance. Sixty years old, and he still seems like he could light the First Order on fire and leave it to burn. 

"Impress? I'm just trying to understand what she says." 

Andor narrows his eyes and gives him a look of complete disbelief. "Right." 

"Just trying to understand." Finn repeats himself for clarity. "All this Jakku trade jargon and stuff."

"Third target. One hundred yards. Go." 

Finn picks up the blaster and lines it up neatly. He's found that even standard-issue Resistance blasters have tics to them, modifications of varying levels of annoyance jammed in by their previous owners. Every one is different. This blaster is one that Jyn dug out of her basement and gave to Finn, because "it was headed for the junk pile anyway." He knows it wasn't. This blaster is large, sturdy, nicer than any on the standard-issue weapons that get passed around base. With a few choice adjustments it can become a standard rifle, a close-quarters revolver, and a long-distance rifle.

He lines himself up at the target, gives himself a moment to let himself settle. A moment. A luxury that doesn't exist in a real fire fight. 

He lets his breath out and shoots. 

And misses brilliantly. 

"Fark." He almost lets the weapon drop on the ground. He's supposed to be good at all of this. 

The Captain claps him firmly on the shoulder. "Good job." 

"That shot sucked." 

"It hit the target. That's an improvement." 

"Not enough." 

"Give yourself some time. You've got a new body to learn to live with."

This is sounding uncomfortably similar to a series of videos Finn's squad was subjected to as teenagers. 

"Respectfully, Mr. Andor, I don't think that's the problem." 

"Of course you shoot differently when your left arm socket's been replaced titanium because a madman with a sword burned it out." 

"You got any tips for that?"

"Shooting? Look at the target and pull the trigger. Always worked for me." 

"No. You've got metal bits in your arms-" 

"- Since getting torn up at Scarif- 

"You got any tips for that?" 

"Yeah. The first bit of advice is if you're about to have sex, don't have a hot shower before hand." 

"WHAT?" This actually causes Finn to drop the blaster. 

Cassian pretends not to notice and continues to fiddle with his scope. "It's going to burn the girl's skin off. Or the boy's." 

"What kind of advice is that?" 

"Practical considerations. The second bit of advice is to never walk through a metal detector." 

"Helpful." 

"I try. But let's practice again." 

This time, Finn isn't too far off the target. 

"Thank you for doing this, Mr. Andor." 

"Anything to get Big Deal back on his feet again." 

Finn wonders offhandedly if Han Solo's happy, wherever he is, about this one particular legacy. The man beside him feels in some ways the complete opposite of Solo, but both sure like ribbing him. 

He thinks Rey and the Captain would get along.

"You want to try again? With the language thing for the girl?" 

"It's not for the girl!" A long pause. "Yes. Something simpler this time." 

"Ants'nel indz mi ptutakabnali." Finn can hear him smirk through the words. Sixty year old men are not supposed to smirk. 

"Fark you." 

\----

"I hear Leia's assigned you a posh new mission." 

He drops the bags full of supplies and turns to see Jyn Erso standing at the entrance to the hangar in her typical state of arms-crossed annoyance. 

"Uh, yeah. I leave in two hours."

What he doesn't tell her is how he asked, begged, pleaded Leia for a mission. For a chance to make himself useful around the rebel base, to prove himself. To become more than the stormtrooper in the local gossip. 

"What's the supposed tagline?" 

"Contact a local woman called Zivka Kovacevic. Follow her to Duvonyeka, make a trade with local crime lord AloJz Horvat for data of First Order movements in exchange for Alliance false identity documents." There's about a million places the plan could go wrong, starting off with venturing into the seat of the mid-rim's gang power. Finn spent his life in armies, but human gangs? He knows exactly what people will do for a cause. What they will do for money is entirely different. "Should be simple." 

"Nothing is ever simple." 

"I know that, but it can't hurt to hope for the best." 

"Cassian's really gotten to you, hasn't he? All this hope crap." 

"Yeah." 

Jyn digs into her pocket for something and pulls it out. 

"Luckily he's yet to make you a very good liar." She holds out the kyber crystal necklace. "That day, when you first woke up, you felt something."

"I did." 

She presses it into his hands. 

"I can't take it." 

"You need a new lightsaber, don't you?" 

Yes, but he doesn't know a thing about how to make one, and if he never saw or thought of lightsabers again his life would be all the better.

He barely has time to respond before she wraps him in a viselike hug. Jyn Erso, causing a scene. Most of the hangar is watching.

"If anything goes wrong in Duonyeka, just bail. Your life is more important. Or call me. I have lots of friends in low places." 

"Thank you." He says, honestly touched even though he has a feeling this lady's friends would only get him into more trouble. 

They break apart and she holds the kyber crystal out again. 

"Please. Take it. I've never had much of a way with the Force, so it's mostly pointless for me anyway." 

He finally picks it up and puts it into his pocket. 

"I will guard it with my life." 

"Guard your own life first, moron." 

She hugs him again, and as he leaves on a standard-issue cargo ship headed for the mid rim, he can still see her waving from the hangar. 

\-----

Aboard the transport carrier out of Duvonyeka, he loops the leather cord of the necklace around his fingers, trying to calm his nerves. He tries to ignore the kyber at the end of it. It feels unnaturally warm, radiating heat against his palm. 

"What's that?" Rose leans in close to him. Rose the maintenance worker, who he's somehow got pulled into the whole mess. Who doesn't deserve any of this, but is still trudging along fearlessly. She doesn't complain, but after the fire fight in Horvat's palace, Finn can see how shaken she is. "Grandma's necklace or something?"

"Family heirloom," he tells her. She has an open, honest face, the kind that makes people want to tell her their secrets. A good trait to have, for a mechanic who has been thrown my circumstance into a role as a resistance spy.

"Worth anything? 

"Sentimental value.

\----

I am one with the force and the force is with me. 

He repeats the mantra in his mind, over and over and over again, trying to find some sense of calm in himself. I am one with the force and the force is with me. 

But how can he be calm? How can he be calm when Kylo has invaded the Resistance's headquarters, when the First Order has killed thousands of their fighters, when Poe and Rey have been captured? How can he be calm, when the safety of the universe relies on Rose, on Rose to be able to get the documents to Leia and on Finn to be able to hold Kylo off long enough for her to succeed? 

He's accepted his death already. If Rey lives, if Poe lives, if Rose lives, if the Rebellion lives, then it will be worth it.

He just needs to not die long enough for it to happen. 

He needs to find that calm. 

But how can he be calm when there is nothing left between him and Ren? How can he be calm when he alone on a floating hunk of metal, alone with the madman with the sword and the scar who will stop at nothing to destroy everything Finn has come to care about? How can he be calm when 

How can he be calm when he is all that remains?

I am one with the force and the force is with me. 

He can be calm because he is all that remains. 

And he has grown stronger than Kylo can fathom, strong in ways Ren will never understand.

He pulls out the kyber crystal he's spent months trying to ignore, feels its signature heat radiate through his frozen fingers. With a soldier's practiced grace he undoes it from the leather cord. He's already found the parts he needs, on this ancient, rotting battle station. Outer casing, power shell, emitter, energy gate, insulator. A lightsaber may be ancient technology, but it releases energy the same way that blasters do. And thanks to the First Order and the fine training of Cassian Andor, Finn knows blasters.

The plastic panels that make up the outer casing slide neatly together.

A half a mile away, down endless dark corridors, Finn can hear Ren's breathing. It comes closer. 

He refuses to let it fill him with fear. 

The interior of the lighsabter is assembled separately, a tight puzzle of copper parts and wires that he quickly knots together. Circuits, energizer, modulators, insulation. His fingers fly over the work. 

Ren comes closer. He can hear the buzz of that damn red saber in the air, feel it in the marrow of his bones. 

He carefully wires the interior into the wire casing and picks up the kyber crystal. The last piece. The only thing left between him and Ren.

This had better fucking work. 

He fits the crystal in just as the door slams open. For a minute all Finn can see is red. That evil, sick red light of Ren's lightsaber, illuminating him like some kind of angel of death. 

But he is not an angel of death, Finn reminds himself. He is a sick, sick boy. And he is a man who has killed billions, a man who will pay. 

Kylo comes closer. He tries to reach out with the Force, drag Finn towards him, but Finn resists. He holds his ground. He will not go down without a fight. 

Ren laughs. 

"Do you really think you can face me? " 

"I'd say my chances are higher then your right now." 

"Fool.You have lost. The rebels have lost. We have D'Qar. We have the pilot and the scavenger. We have won. Bow down, and I will grant you a quick death as befits a traitor to the Empire." 

Once, he was afraid of him. Once the mere though of him brought Finn back to that terrifying night on Starkiller Base. 

He's still afraid. Terrified. But this time- this time Finn is made of anger. This is for what Kylo has done to Poe. This is for what Kylo has done for Rey, locking her up and violating her in ways no person should ever know. This is for what Kylo, what the first order in general, have done to Rose, made a refugee who will never see the rice terraces and cliffs and turquoise water of her home again. 

This is for what the First Order have done to him. He'll never know his family, his home planet, his father's smile or the way his mother sang him to sleep. The First Order stole the innocent child in him, and the awkward teenager.

They can not have the man. 

"No. You've already lost." And Finn's new lightsaber blazes to brilliant white life. 

**Author's Note:**

> I may have to write another fic for purposes of Finn interacting with Bodhi. 
> 
> The sentence Cassian is teaching Finn to say is "Pass me the wrench" in Spanish, Russian, and Armenian. (Yes, Finn, all real languages.) The language Finn remembers words from is Yoruba.


End file.
